Joey Votto vsL ..356OBP/.477SLG
Adam Dunn vsL .359OBP/.474SLG

Those two guys hit lefties better than most of the rest of the lineup hits. Bring in a lefty to get them out…. those guys still would have been the Reds leading hitters last season with those numbers.

but I think most of us feel that LOOGY’S serve a useful purpose. Over the past few seasons Griffey was a much better hitter when he faced a right handed pitcher. But I would rather have a good left handed hitter than a mediocre right handed hitter. Wouldn’t it be great to have a lineup with 4 lefties and 4 righties or just 8 switch hitters, sure it would. If nothing else (no statistical evidence just a hunch) managers would burn through their bullpen a lot faster playing match up.

But…

I don’t feel like looking up the splits but as Doug said Votto is hitter very well against left handed pitching, and I know for a while (if not all of) last season Votto hit better against left handed pitching. To go along with that I believe Bill Bray had an easier time getting right handed hitters out (as does/did Tom Glavine).

Overall left handed pitchers are more successful against left handed hitters than right handed pitchers (and vice versa). But I would rather have a bullpen of 7 good right handed pitchers than 5 good right handed pitchers and 2 bad lefties. I feel that you can’t just throw a left handed pitcher out there because a group of lefties are batting, because their may be little statistical difference between how the hitters perform against lefties and righties. Of course if you have 3 guys with Ken Griffey Jr. like splits due up, yeah a LOOGY is nice to have.

I’ll admit that I let outside issues affect my attitude on this one.

But I feel like, and this is not just you, that there has been a lot of “I guess we can’t talk about that anymore” going on around here. And I honestly don’t know why. I feel like a lot of times it comes from someone that doesn’t necessarily have the stats on their side, so they just give up. I’ve never felt that statistics were required to win an argument around here. Yes, I believe that they can make your argument stronger, but I’ve been convinced of things that I didn’t expect by people like Thundering Turtle and Caleb, guys who hardly ever use advanced stats to make a point. Do you feel like there is an environment here that doesn’t allow for a variety of ideas?

I don’t recall the previous LOOGY conversation – the horseshit conversation was definitely about EdE. And the unnecessary attacks aside, I felt like that thread was an interesting discussion, even if it did get a little heated. I’m sorry if that thread made you feel like the site stifles conversations, but that’s not what I took away from it.

No offense, but I went looking through your comment history. I genuinely wondered if you had ever been attacked for advocating that the team not be so lefty heavy. Please point me to something I missed because I don’t see it at all.

Here’s the big “should the team exclusively focus on a right handed bat” thread. You and Slyde have a nice back and forth. As early as last August you were warning about a lefty pitcher shutting us down and there was no disagreement. Here in December you seem a bit testy on the subject (the lefty thing IS real, gang), but I’m not sure what set that off.

(aside—I think the most commonly held viewpoint here on the matter (and there are many views) is that ideally the Reds need a right handed bat. But the team needs a good deal of offense so if I righty bat can not be acquired maybe a left handed one will do. The fear among many is that the team will seek out a worse player simply because they bat righty. I don’t think you’ve disagreed with that. And in no way does the sabermetric movement dismiss platoon splits. Far from it.)

Here’s the horseshit exchange. It was about Edwin Encarnacion’s hustle. I just re-read it and I think it was a fine thread, although definitely one of our more tense. Look, Man Mountain called your post horseshit. That’s what he does. He calls people’s ideas horseshit. This is the internet. We’ve all been called far worse. Then the two of you seemed to have a decent dialogue. I wouldn’t think it would still be bothering you as much as this post makes it seem.

 A lot of people disagreed with you on the hustle thing. I know that can make it feel like this is a closed community or that dissent is squashed. I’ve been in positions where I’m the only one advocating something. But we soldier on in those cases. I thought you handled it well. You took offense at one point that you were repeatedly being misquoted, but I think we were simply talking about vaguely defined terms and the discussion was shifting. And it should be noted you were not alone in your opinion.

But I agreed with Slyde here. This is what he’s talking about. “Around here it’s heresy so type it quietly…” Again, what prompted that? And I think passive-aggressive is a pretty good description. It reminds me of the shots at the age 27 thing that you were kind of, sort of taking, but not really.

I know it’s a dick move on my part to pull out your comment history looking for patterns. Feel free to do the same to me (or to call me out if you ever think I’m for of shit). But when you’re making blanket accusations of group think and de factor censorship I think it’s warranted.

I just don’t think you’ve been as persecuted here as you seem to believe.